Where were you when Kennedy was shot?
Residents talk about their memories from Nov. 22, 1963
The Herald asked its newspaper and liherald.com readers, and its Facebook followers, “Where were you the day JFK was shot?” Many of them had distinct memories of where they were, and moreso, how they reacted when they heard the news. Some were quite young, but others already had families and were living the American dream.
Hearing the screams in Dallas
Cecilia Maher, 91, of Uniondale, was managing a cardiologist’s office just a few blocks from Dealey Plaza, in the heart of Dallas, TX, on that fateful day, Nov. 22, 1963, when President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was fatally shot while riding in a motorcade. At the time, Maher was married to a captain in the Marine Corps, with a son attending Jesuit High School. She was 41.
“ … [W]hen we got the word … the office was full … well, the waiting room was full of patients, like it always was. Dr. Rothschild was a very fine cardiologist and diagnostician. When we got the word, I was sitting at my desk in my little office overseeing the waiting room … and the people all started crying and screaming and yelling — and I ran back to tell Dr. Rothschild — he was with a patient — and he just quit doing what he was doing …. it was just a bad day for everybody; you could hear people screaming outside
Maher talked about her friend, a former “Our Gang” child star who had moved from Hollywood to Dallas in the early 60s to become a nurse. She has since died.
“She was at Parkland hospital,” said Maher. “She was one of the nurses who attended him. She talked to me some about it … it was a horrible experience — she was a fine nurse, so she was very touched, not only because [Kennedy] was a patient, but because of who he was. We all loved JFK, it was very unusual to have a Catholic President. He and Jackie — they were Camelot.”
Maher said that she traveled to Europe the following year, and recalled walking down a London street, where she began chatting with a gentleman.
“You’re from the colonies, aren’t you?” he asked her. And she told him, yes, she was from Dallas.
